Rip City Project
Fansided

Streaking Blazers beat the Heat 115-99 for their 10th straight win

By Matt George Moore

PORTLAND, OR - MARCH 12: Justice Winslow
PORTLAND, OR - MARCH 12: Justice Winslow /
facebooktwitterreddit

The Portland Trail Blazers (mostly) cruise past the visiting Miami Heat, led by Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic.

Damian Lillard may be Western Conference Player of the Week, but it was Jusuf Nurkic who was the focal point of the Trail Blazers’ offense early.

Against the Miami Heat, the first of three straight Eastern Conference teams to visit the Moda Center, Nurkic was active from start to finish.

Still, like much of Nurk’s game this season, it sometimes remains a work in progress.

Nurkic was definitely the driving force, though; he had eight points and three rebounds in the game’s first five minutes. It was Nurkic and Lillard, however, who would close this one out.

The Heat were without Dwyane Wade and Hassan Whiteside.

Here’s what we were yapping about as the game progressed.

FIRST HALF

Young Zach Collins continues to impress.

And he’s looking super comfortable out there.

https://twitter.com/NBA/status/973396039418949632

The Blazers dropped 34 on the Heat in the first quarter.

And they upped the tempo in the second.

Despite the fact that several players were off to poor shooting starts.

Goran Dragic led the Heat on a 7-0 run to pull Miami within seven, 49-42.

But the Blazers pulled away late in the half.

SECOND HALF

The Heat pulled within seven points early in the third quarter, 63-56. But Damian Lillard got hot, hitting a couple of three-pointers to stretch the Blazers lead again.

That was part of a little scoring run to put the Blazers up by 14 points, 71-57. And Nurkic helped with another nice move near the post.

And he wasn’t done yet!

https://twitter.com/NBCSNorthwest/status/973412097995370496

That opened up the biggest lead of the night for the Trail Blazer (19 points), 86-67.

More from Blazers News

After three, the Blazers were up by 16 points, 88-72.

But the Heat pushed back early in the fourth, going on a 15-5 run to start the quarter.

A peeved coach Terry Stotts called a couple of timeouts to get his team back on track.

The Blazers lead was just six points, 93-87, with 7:35 left in the game.

And the Heat kept pushing and the Blazers defenders kept letting them.

Eventually, though, the Blazers, with the help of Lillard (natch) and Nurkic, were able to put the pesky Heat away.

FINAL SCORE: Trail Blazers 115, Heat 99.

Next: Wade Baldwin signed; Damian Lillard wins Player of the Week

Three Takeaways

  1. The Blazers have won 16 of their last 17 home games.
  2. Al-Farouq Aminu struggled mightily (2-of-9 from the field), but did hit a key three-pointer late. He also grabbed nine rebounds.
  3. And finally:

Next up for the Blazers: A Thursday home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. (PDT).